Sunday, November 25, 2012

Jay McCarroll at BMQG!

I feel like this happened ages ago! In reality, just a few weeks. After months of planning, a little organizing and more worrying than necessary, the Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild hosted our first guest speaker: Jay McCarroll.



I first met Jay at the Lancaster Quilt show, where we literally bumped into him in the lobby of the hotel. He was so sweet, funny and gracious. He gave us sneak peeks of his upcoming line (which is now out: Center City.) I invited him to come speak at our guild. 8 months later, we made it work (said in my best Tim Gunn voice!)
With the bag that Amy made!

Wearing the mini quilt Dawn made!


Jay spent the day with us, talking about his childhood, his early designing years, life in Europe and New York. And yes, he dished on all the Project Runway stuff. It's so interesting, though, because to hear his whole story, PR was such a small portion. Yes, it launched him into the international fashion spotlight ~ not necessarily a good thing ~ but it's so far from what he is now. He was very honest, very funny and at times a little naughty. (There were a couple of pre-teens in the audience who may have learned a new phrase or two!) He spoke for three hours. I think many of us could have listened to his stories for a few more.




Towards the end of the afternoon, he got into his latest projects. He showed us samples of his upcoming line (no photography, please!) and gave us a little tour of his latest offerings: scarves, socks,  skirts, magnets, cards, etc. All available at Jay McCarroll Online (oh, and he's having a little Cyber Monday sale now, too!)

He finished up with lots of autograph signing and picture taking, before heading back to Philadelphia.








Thanks, Jay for a great afternoon! We'll see you again soon!

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I would love to meet him, you lucky girl!

suemac said...

Man you really scored. We are hoping to snag one of the QuiltCon speakers for our Austin Modern Quilt Guild come February.

Anonymous said...

it was a real pleasure to get to speak with you and your fellow guilds. we will have to do it again sometime! ps: if you want to pass along this info, i have an area on my fabric website where people can submit their projects that they have used CENTER CITY in. check out www.jaymccarrollfabric.com. happy sewing! x. j

9patchnurse said...

It was a great day, thanks so much for organizing it. I could have listened to Jay for another 3 hours. I still need to get my hands on some Center City and I can't wait for his new fabrics.

Anjeanette said...

Such a fun day!